


this dance is like a weapon

by thelandofnothing



Series: on the hillside i remember (i am loving losing life) [3]
Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: D&D? i only know 2 dumb idiots, Dream of the Future, F/M, Fluff, Part 3, arya doesn't go on a suicidal mission, gendry says 'fuck the police', i had to let the other trash slide, season 8 fix-it, the end of ep 6 didn't happen here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-18
Updated: 2019-07-18
Packaged: 2020-07-08 00:59:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19860940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thelandofnothing/pseuds/thelandofnothing
Summary: after king's landing turns to ashes, arya stark's heart begins to grow.





	this dance is like a weapon

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this piece after season 8 finished and wondered how i could integrate it. 
> 
> i have at least two more parts for the rest of the series planned out so i hope you guys enjoy this one 
> 
> (takes place in season 6, i haven't explicitly written what happened in the episode but assume everything happens but all the starks/women ending up alone) 
> 
> title is from the song present tense by radiohead

There was not a feeling in her legs as the horse cantered down the streets. Streets lined with the ashes of mothers and children that a Dragon Queen had sworn to liberate.

The ringing in her ears was only amplified by the desertion of the ash-laden environment around her and the patter of the horse’s hooves rippled off the incinerated buildings. She started to recall the hiss of wildfire, the force of the crowd fleeing from dragon fire. The very air around her was laden with thick white ash, that through her doubled vision appeared very much like the snow she used to play in back in Winterfell. Her lungs were thick with it and her chest heaved painfully with every breath. She could feel blood running rivets down her face which, when she went to touch her cheek, came back chalky and crusted with crimson. Her leathers are strangely still intact, and her most treasured weapons are still attached to her body. She is grateful for that, not as grateful for Sandor and his words, not as grateful for the woman who pulled her the stampede. But in the end, with Valyrian steel daggers and years of mindless training, she couldn’t save them, not a single one of them. She couldn’t save the child that screamed for her mother, not the Hound who trekked through the crumbling Red Keep to meet his death.

The horse hit a fragment of rubble and she flew boneless from its back, tumbling to the ground with no strength in her thighs to keep her up. When her head hit the cobblestone, her world shone black.

* * *

_She can’t feel the chill of the Godswood or the snow underfoot that blankets the forest floor, but she can hear her ancestors’ whispers in the wind as they rustle through the branches of the Weirwood tree. Winterfell has always calmed her and although she ended the Long Night here, it will always be the place where she feels at home. She walks forward and spies the hot spring and the log where a couple is seated, bundled together under their furs and cloaks. She assumes they are older, much older; their backs hunched over and their hair grey. When she approaches them, she can see the creases of their faces. She stops abruptly, staring into the face of a woman she’s seen before…_

_It’s her._

_And the man beside her is unmistakably Gendry, his face still bears the scars from the war but the wrinkles in his skin and by his eyes are different. He sports a grey thick beard and his hair shines silver under the moonlight. He doesn’t seem to notice her standing there for when she smiles at him, the two barely move._

_A dream, she thinks, I’m in a dream._

_The older version of herself has her head resting on Gendry’s shoulder, their fingers are intertwined and suddenly, the older Gendry presses a kiss to her forehead._

_“Are you cold, you old man?” the Arya in front of her goads, her voice is cracked and aged but it’s still hers._

_“I’m not the one shivering, m’lady,” he teases back and Arya’s heart warms at the term of endearment from when they were children, “We better go inside; your sister will have my head for letting you spend so much time in the cold.”_

_Older Arya snorts much as she does now, “I’m a wolf if you’ve forgotten, a little Northern wind is good for the lungs. You, on the other hand, will always be such a whiny Southerner.”_

_He snorts, much like he did on the road all those years ago._

_Older Arya doesn’t get to finish the sentence before the scene dissipates in a cloud of ash and suddenly, she appears in a large room that’s bathed only in the light of a crackling hearth. A bed takes up the majority of the room where a couple lies peacefully under a mountain of furs. Arya steps closer to see herself again, similar to own age now, lying on Gendry’s bare chest with her eyes barely open. He is snoring soundly with an arm around her waist. She watches herself, lying with a relaxed and content look on her face as she mindlessly traces patterns on his skin. The door to the side of the bed opens and a little shadow filters through into the room. A young boy with black hair in sleeping tunics clutches a stuffed wolf toy, rubbing swollen eyes._

_“Neddy, what’s wrong little one?”_

_She furrows her brow at the scene as the boy climbs into the bed and settles between Gendry and herself._

_“A bad dream,” the boy named ‘Neddy’ hiccups and she can only deduce that this is her son, “There was a monster…”_

_Suddenly Gendry wakes as well, rubbing a hand over his face before reaching over to the boy’s back._

_“You can sleep with Papa and me then.”_

_The Arya she sees looks up to Gendry with a loving expression which he reciprocates, and he bends down to capture her lips in a sweet kiss as the boy burrows into the furs, wide blue eyes scanning the room. Gendry turns to the boy and kisses his forehead, brushing the hair out of his eyes._

_“Try and sleep little wolf,” he says quietly, the phantom Arya watching him silently, “No monster will hurt you; Mama will protect us.”_

_The boy leans up and kisses his bearded cheek and settles against his father, closing his eyes. After a few moments, she can hear little soft snores._

_“I love you,” Arya tells him, and she is taken aback by the ease of the words as they slip from the mouth of the dreamed version of herself._

_“I love you too,” says Gendry, “Sleep now.”_

_And suddenly the sleeping family and the humble room turns to ashes._

_It was brighter now, under the light of day and the strong aroma of salt infiltrates her nostrils, the ground sways rhythmically underneath her._

_She looks around and saw herself again, standing at the bow of the ship with her arms resting on the pommel of Needle. An older man saunters up to her, dressed in sailor’s garb with his hands behind his back._

_“Where to Captain?”_

_The phantom Arya looks ahead at the endless sea again with what she can see is a calm smile._

_“Home,” she replies and the man chuckles._

_Suddenly, she feels as though she’s drowning when the scene disappears again._

_Arya gasps when she hears screaming._

_It’s a woman’s scream, that she can tell and as she travels down the familiar hallway in the Great keep of Winterfell, she reaches a room, barred shut and guarded with two Northern soldiers, whose grimaces are not well hidden. Whoever is in there sounds as though they are ready to meet death._

_She puts her hand out and finds that her body passes straight through the wood and no one is aware of her moving through the door like a ghost._

_The room is heavy with the heat from the roaring fire place and Arya sees herself on a bloody birthing bed and Gendry’s brows furrowed as he sits in a chair beside her, holding her hand. A maester is preening at her, telling her she’s doing well and to keep pushing. Sansa is there too, tending to her when she needs it but following the maester obediently. She expects Gendry to be saying more but he remains stoic and keeps his hands firmly in hers, occasionally taking the cloth from her sister and pressing it to Arya’s brow gently._

_“Come on love, one more push,” he says in a low voice, seemingly only to the woman in the bed._

_The phantom Arya makes one last strangled scream and she watches Gendry screw his eyes shut, pressing their joined hands to his lips and kissing her fingers gently._

_Suddenly, the cry of a babe erupts the room, and the face of the conjured Arya drops with relief._

_The maester is quick to cut the babe from his mother and wipe it clean with a blanket before handing the bundle to Arya who takes the little thing in her arms desperately. Gendry stands up then, moving to rest on the bed beside her._

_“A healthy boy.” the maester announces but the couple cannot take their eyes off the babe with the tuff of raven hair._

_Arya watches herself, as she touches the child’s face with the tip of her finger marvelling at his big blue eyes, identical to the man next to her._

_“He looks exactly like you,” the phantom says, mirroring her thoughts and Gendry kisses her forehead._

_“And I can already tell he’ll have your wild spirit,” he says softly._

_She passes the babe to him and Arya looks on as the man cradles the child in his huge arms with the most tender look she’s ever seen on his face._

_“Eddard?” he looks back to the recovering woman in the bed, “Little Ned Stark Baratheon?”_

_She smiles back at him and nods teary-eyed as he lays the babe back in her arms, reaching out for a teat to suck on._

_“Hungry already little wolf?” Gendry says, brushing his son’s hair with a chuckle._

_Arya observes with fascination, as the phantom holds the babe to her breast naturally and the little boy starts to suckle. She sees Gendry’s soft eyes and the hand she doesn’t miss that wraps around her waist. He strokes her hair and presses a kiss to the crown of her head. It’s uncharacteristically gentle of his nature but deep down, Arya knows that he’s always loved her, more than the woman a man takes to bed._

_The phantom looks up to Gendry with unbridled love and kisses him gently before the scene gently fades away…_

_Suddenly she’s in the crypts of Winterfell, watching someone huddled in front of a statue. She knows where she is; her father’s statue is not too far from where she stands now. She walks closer and realises it is Gendry again, much older than the first time._

_“You killed the bloody Night King and then you let a damn fever take you,” he said hoarsely, and she looked down to see him staring straight at her._

_“Can you see me?” she asks, and he just laughs, the same way he laughed with her as a child._

_“Of course, m’lady,” he says, grunting as he got up, “I could be going blind and deaf, but I always know it’s you. Spent a great deal of my life, trying to get you out of trouble.”_

_She snorted and walked over to the statue he stood beside._

_Her heart stops when she sees a woman with a stone hand resting on the pommel of what looks like Needle, the catspaw dagger is on the other hip._

_“Looks nothing like you, told your sister as much,” he told her while she peered curiously. They’ve made her appear younger; stone-faced like when she killed the Night King. The words ‘Saviour of the Realm’ rests in a plaque under the statue’s feet._

_“What’s happened over the years?” she asks him, and his blue eyes simmer nostalgically under the light of a single torch._

_“Lots of things, but that’s for you to find out. We control fate and what you see now is most likely not what you’ll get.”_

_She smiles and is almost grateful for his hesitancy to tell her the future._

_“But a fever?” she asks incredulously, and he barks out a laugh._

_“I told them all Arry! I told them that’s exactly what you would have said,” he cracks a tender smile that she recognises from a distant past, “You went peacefully, and now I know it’s time for me too.”_

_Her eyes widen as his gaze turns back to the statue._

_“Do you know I am the luckiest man to ever live Arya?,” he tells her and she looks at him, he has the same eyes as the boy who travelled with her all those years ago in the Riverlands, “You loved me as much as I loved you, spent your whole bloody life dealing with my stubbornness and my grumpiness. But you gave me that one thing I’d always wanted in life.”_

_“A family,” she responds for him and he nods, a tear escaping an aged eye._

_“You were always so beautiful, you only got more so over the years,” he said, kneeling down again, “Don’t deny yourself happiness Arya.”_

_The crypts go black and she is alone in the darkness again._

* * *

_Do you want to be like me?_

Sandor’s voice jolts her to life, and she wakes in a foreign bed, clutching at the bed covers.

There are voices outside, gruff and tired ones and she attempts to sit up but the pain in her head is excruciating. Her very limbs feel as heavy as lead as she forces herself up, grunting with the aches in her bones. Suddenly, Jon enters the tent. There’s blood on his plate armour, ash embedded within the grooves of an articulate direwolf. His hair is matted with it like she expected hers was not long ago.

“Water,” she croaks, and he rushes to the jug at the side of her bed, filling a cup and bringing it to her.

She drinks like a dying man and feels a gentle hand caress her hair like he did when she was a young girl.

“Daenerys…” she starts, and Jon’s face becomes pained.

“Burnt the city… It’s gone, Arya,”

Slivers of memories flash in front of her eyes of the city she has much connection too, glimpses of pasts and futures, flashes of warmth and ice and ash… The Hound’s palm cupping her hair, A black-haired armourers apprentice threatening to make a fat boy sing like steel…

The last one makes the tear roll down her cheek.

“Gendry,” she whispers distantly, and Jon narrows his eyes.

“Gendry?” he sits down next to her, his brows furrowing, “How do you know Gendry?”  
  


_I love him,_ she wanted to say but instead, she placed a hand on her brother’s forearm.

“We travelled for a while after father… We reconciled in Winterfell after I lost him to the Brotherhood.”

Realisation flooded Jon’s face and suddenly he began to chuckle.

“Explains why he was so reluctant to let them come with us when we went north of the Wall,” he shakes his head incredulously, “He bloody saved all our lives that one. Ran miles on the ice to get a raven out.”

She stares at him, the new knowledge filtering through her brain more slowly than she normally could process. Gendry had always been strong; she had been beside him in the Riverlands. He had kept himself alive in Harrenhal. But it warmed her heart like nothing else to hear that her beloved brother and the man she loved were close.

“He’s a good man Arya, I’m glad you know him.”

“Jon… He…” she looked up at him through her lashes, “He proposed to me Jon, asked me to be his wife. To be the Lady of Storm’s End.”

Her brother’s eyes widened, and she can catch the glint of murder that flares in his grey irises. But he seems to read her face and settles, like the ash she saw on the empty streets, settling on the destruction of the city as the snow did back in Winterfell.

“He loves you?” Jon asked and she can see the faintest sliver of disbelief tangled in his grief-ridden irises.

She looks away and lets the silence be her answer.

“I’m guessing you didn’t say yes.”

‘Does that make me a bad person?” she whispered but felt his hand stroke her face, “To be a lady is to… I couldn’t say yes, not when I’ve… I’ve done things no lady has ever done; I haven’t been a lady since we left Winterfell all those years ago and even then… We both know I am no lady.”

“It doesn’t have to be what you want… Now if I remember carefully, the man had quite a bit to drink and then Daenerys goes and legitimises him. I think he was just excited and wanted to share it with you. When men get in their cups, they can get a little…”

“Stupid?” she offers, and he lets out a hearty laugh.

“Yes, stupid is a good word. But… Wow…” he runs a hand through his long hair, “Proposing to the Saviour of the Realm. A brave man… A very brave man. But very stupid like you said.”

She looks down at her hand, at the dirt, ash and blood that’s caked underneath her fingernails. _I’ve got hands of a killer,_ she thought and remembered her vivid dream, _not a wife, not a mother, not the bloody Lady of Storm’s End._

“Why would anyone want to marry me...? I’m…” she starts but the way Jon looks at her, shuts her up.

“Well, you’re a lot of things… You’re my sister for starters,” he chuckles and looks at her with a brother’s love, “But you’re also a beautiful young Northern woman and I know you… You care about people; you love fiercely like no other. You always loved me regardless of what your lady mother thought. And you… You saved us all. It doesn’t matter what we’ve done, we’ve all done it to survive.”

“I’m not the little girl you used to know,” she says and feels a single tear spill down her cheek, “I’ve got the blood of an entire house of my hands… I’ve killed and I remember each one as clear as day.”

Jon looks down and slips his hand into hers.

“It doesn’t make us who are we are Arya,” he shakes his head.

Her heart sinks.

“Where is Daenerys?” she asks him, and his eyes grow pained.

“In the Red Keep, we’re outside the city with the Northerners. I will have to see her soon enough.”

“She can’t stay alive Jon,” she warns him and pulls her hand away, “She’ll continue to massacre anyone she deems an enemy. You’re a threat to her rule, you have more claim than she.”

“And I don’t want it Arya!” he raises his voice, but she can tell by the tone that he’s beyond tired, “After this, we will go home, and we will never go South again.”

“And do you believe she’ll let you? She’s gone mad Jon!” she let her voice grow fierce, sorely inhibited by the coat of ash in her lungs, “I was on those streets, she will never let you go now!”

The thought of Winterfell warms her heart, the hallways she escaped down as a child, away from the tyrant clutches of Septa Mordane or her mother’s bounding voice. The warmth is in the memory of the training yard, learning to shoot arrows under Robb’s and Jon’s tutelage, the warmth is in her father’s eyes whilst he watches her, the smile tugging at his lips. She remembers curling on the cold floors to hear Old Nan’s stories, shoving snow down Bran’s jerkin. She remembers Robb putting her to bed after throwing food at Sansa.

The North is her home, it will always be.

But there were things to do and lives to be lived, and Winterfell, she thought, could wait.

* * *

Arya can’t help but grimace when she hears of Daenerys Targaryen’s fate and Jon’s imprisonment.

The council meeting commences at noon.

She sees _him._

She sits next to her brother and watches the noblemen fix their silken clothes and stare at each other with their noses turned up in the air. He sits by Davos’ side, the Lord of Storm’s End in his Baratheon leathers that have silver claw marks on the shoulders. She looks down at her own attire; a black jerkin and a black cloak studded with golden fur, the sheath of her Valyrian dagger is strangely adorned with yellow. She wonders if she is the only one, aware of the unintentional gesture to their respective houses. 

The meeting proceeds tentatively. Grey Worm stands authoritatively over Tyrion Lannister as they bicker over potential leadership. When her uncle Edmure stands to propose himself as a candidate, she nearly rolls on the floor laughing in disbelief and her sister’s firm voice only made her glad she was a Stark even more.

After she threatens Yara Greyjoy and Bran is elected king, the lords mill about the constructed tent in the Dragon Pit. Her sister saunters up to her, her red hair glimmering under the noon light.

“I would like to know the history of your acquaintance to Lord Baratheon,” she whispers in her ear and Arya feels her lips tightened, “He simply cannot stop staring at you.”

She looks up to where he is standing with Davos, a hand resting on the pommel of his sword. Once their eyes meet, he gives her a small smile and cocks his head teasingly.

She smiles back whilst shaking her head, ignoring the look her sister is giving her.

“I love him,” she finally acquiesces in a soft voice, “But that is a tale for another time.”

She’s able to stand now without help but too much talking makes her cough up black mucus and blood. There are a few more scars that needed stitches on her face and there are ugly burns that scour her arms and legs. But when they are finally alone together in a cosy, kempt room in the unscathed section of the Red Keep, she forgets for a second how war-torn her body truly is.

She smiles, feeling tears welling in her eyes as she raises her arms to him, and he walks into her embrace like it is home. When he lets her go after what feels both like several minutes and only a single moment, his eyes begin to dance as he takes her in, and she can only feel a peace that’s never graced her heart.

“Arya, before you say anything, I want to tell you what I asked you was stupid… And I was drunk and over the moon that I finally had a name that was worthy of you, and I wanted a future… I love you, I meant that, but I know you’re no lady. Never seen you act like a lady one day in my bloody life. What I meant was that I want _you_ to be with _me,_ the way I’ve always known you. Just Arya Stark, with mud in your hair and a sword on your hip, and even you calling me stupid.”

He shuts up when she puts a hand on his cheek and lets her fingers sprawl over his growing stubble. He looks good in Baratheon black leathers; it makes his eyes sparkle like a raging sea and cool ice all at once.

“I’m not a lady…” she tells him and watches as his face barely twitches, “But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to be with you.”

“You don’t have to be a lady of anything Arya. I’m not asking for anything; I just want you and if well… We can fuck right off the side of the world if you want, I wouldn’t mind, it’s just a castle. If you don’t want me, that’s alright too. I just wanted you to know…”

“Shush,” she says, and his gaping mouth closes again, “I’m not going to a lady of anything, you’re absolutely correct. At the moment… I can’t stay here, not in this city, not in this country.”

She feels his arms circle her waist and his eyes grow deep with understanding.

“Where do you want to go?”

She laughs softly and looks away for a moment before resuming the uninterrupted eye-contact. He stares at her so intensely and passionately, and she feels as though his eyes are worshipping her entire being like she is the goddess he prays to every morning and night.

“Ever been to Essos?” she whispers and his brows furrow.

He shook his head and let out a laugh.

“I’m a blacksmith, not a bloody pirate m’lady but I do have some experience on the water.”

She cocks her head curiously and chooses to ignore his reference to something she has no apparent knowledge about.

“And what about Storm’s End m’lord Baratheon, what about your precious castle?” she asks.

“Fuck the Baratheons, fuck Storm’s End,” he tells her, a playful, defiant glint swimming in his eyes, “I don’t know how to be a lord, you don’t know how to be a lady.”

She smiled so hard; her cheeks strained with the pleasure.

“You’d come with me?”

He nods and presses his forehead against hers, nuzzling their noses together.

“I haven’t had a bloody clue where to go for most of my life, but I didn’t mind it when I was following you in the Riverlands,” she can feel his smirk before it takes over his lips, “Even though you were bullshitting about that moss… You were takin’ us in circles.”

She hits his arm and he laughs; a joyous, beautiful laugh that bubbles out of his belly and into her heart. She loves the sound of it, loves being the root cause of such easy happiness.

“Like you knew any better, city boy,” she

“Wherever you go, I go,” he told her, and she looked up at him, wonder-eyed, “That, I know.”

When they are laying in her chambers later that night, she is drawing imaginary shapes on his bare chest while he breathes gently and cards his fingers through her hair. It is reminiscent of the dream she had after the city burnt to ashes. If there is anyone, she can tell about the weird flashes that seemed so realistic, yet surreal, it is the man whose arms are around her waist.

“I dreamt, you know?” she whispers, and he looks down at her, “After… After everything happened.”

He’s no longer Gendry Baratheon in this room, his leathers on the floor and the sword she knows he cannot use is tangled among her own on the table close to the window. The second time had been desperate but slower, the embodiment of their promises made to each before. He’s just Gendry here with her, and she is Arya. There is no need to mention bastardry or nobility in the space between their skin where only love furrows in the air where a large calloused hand engulfs a softer one with secrets concealed in the lifelines of their palms.

“I dreamt of the future…” she attempts to explain to the best of her ability, and his hands never faltered as they caressed her hair, “I dreamed of us old, dreamed of us with a child…”

His eyes that were closed now flash awake, blue assaulting the dull white of their sheets.

“I like the sound of that dream,” he teases, and maybe, right now, if the peace hadn’t sunk into her bones, she would have curled into herself and wished to run away. 

But Arya knew the man who lay tangled in the mess of her scarred limbs, she knew who he was, what he wanted. He wanted a family, and she was a wolf. As much as she had wished it, and manifested it for years of her lonely life, she never truly wanted to be alone, she had always longed for her pack. Part of her that had withered and died for those years suddenly revitalised like a flower rising from the mud. Being with the man she loved didn’t take anything away from her character, if anything, he was the one who watched her lead and encouraged her to do so. _Their pack,_ she thought fondly and remembered the child that had slipped so easily in between their bodies. A part of her, still as strong as the rest of her, liked the idea.

“You’d be a good father,” she says, and he looks at her with furrowed brows and pulls the furs closer to her chin.

“What makes you say that?” he asks her with eyes that she knows she can trust.

_You remind me of all the good men in my life, the ones that kept me happy, wild and safe._

“ _My_ father would have liked you… You remind me of him, and that’s why I _know_ you’d be a good father. Because you’re honourable and loyal and you love fiercely.”

“Never had a father…” he whispers absentmindedly, “I want to be more than the man everyone says I look like.”

She knows the feeling all too well; Lyanna Stark was all but a ghost, but men and women of the Rebellion had always fawned over her similarity to her late aunt.

He looks down at their joined hands like he was pondering a particular memory.

“Your father came to the Street of Steel… Before we met all those years ago when I was still an armourer’s apprentice,” he tells her whilst stroking her knuckles with his thumb, “I remembered he was the first highborn that I could ever tolerate… I just felt like he cared, y’know? And when you’re poor and a bastard, those things mean a lot, especially when you’ve got highborns looking down on you, your entire life.”

“I’m glad, I know he would have loved you,” she leant up and kissed him, feeling his body surrender against hers like a sail taking to the wind.

“You think he would have liked me now?” he asked her, a grin erupting his swollen lips and she rolled her eyes until a laugh escapes her chest. She’s resting on him, heart on his chest and as naked as her name day.

They lie in their silent companionship for moments longer before he speaks again.

“I’m not cut out for lordship Arya,” he tells her, and her eyes go wide, “I’m being craven, but I cannot handle the responsibility of a whole kingdom. I’m miserable there.”

She cups his face and runs her thumb over his cheekbone.

“You’d be the best lord, I’d ever know.”

He shifts uncomfortably and runs a hand up her back.

“I already gave it up.”

Her eyes go wide.

“You gave it up,” she repeats, and he shrugs indifferently.

“We’ve got plans, you and I,” he whispers, laying back down, “No time for lords and their bullshit.”

_Like an outlaw, like Wenda the Whitefawn._

She knows Sandor is looking down at her, cursing her soft twat heart while smiling his very own smile she learnt he kept just for her.

_That’s what I meant wolf girl._

She rests her head on Gendry’s chest once again and he wraps himself around her, his nose in her hair.

* * *

After the devastation in King’s Landing, it will take moons for a ship to be organised for their trip East.

Arya takes the time to spend with her family before Sansa returns North and Jon goes further. She spends her nights with Gendry either helping him learn how to read and write or planning their trip together.

One rainy night, Bran holds his first feast; a smaller gathering accompanied by juicy venison and imported Dornish red. Jon fills her cup and dumps pies and meats on her trencher, and later pulls her up to dance when Podrick Payne starts a ballad and someone thumps their tankard in a drunken beat. As she spins around, she is joined by her sister and even Brienne of Tarth who awkwardly tries to find her feet amongst the commotion.

She looks down to see Gendry grinning, tipping his tankard in her direction. His own cheeks are pink with ale as she saunters up to him and plops herself on his lap. Jon gives them a scandalous look and Sansa throws her head back with laughter.

“Do you want to dance m’lady?” he whispers against the skin of her neck, a sound that sends tremors down her back.

“I’ve got two left feet m’lord, I’m afraid you’ll have no toes left by the end of the night.”

He lets out a deep-bellied laugh and stands up, clasping his hands around hers.

“Oh well, toes are toes. I’ll only get you in cups like this once in a lifetime so come on,” 

He hoists her up, stumbling on his feet like a disorientated child. He twirls her around with the grace of a drunken fool as she laughs and laughs and laughs; her hair flailing loose of its usual tight up-do behind her head. By the time the night wanes on, they return to their seats and she places her cheek on his shoulder, intertwining their fingers.

It almost seems too good to be true, but maybe this is the interval the Gods granted them after a lifetime of war.

**Author's Note:**

> kudos and comments are GREATLY appreciated, i hope you all have a great day and/or night!


End file.
